A Quick Note: This review was originally written on 04/15/2009 and is being transferred here new my new site. The pricing may not be up-to-date. Please click on the links below to see the most current prices. Thank you.

Apolgia Educational Ministries

Over the course of the maiden voyage of this focus group, a few of the members have had the opportunity to review different science products. I had not received any until recently. I have had the wonderful opportunity to review Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Biology textbook and Exploring Creation with Zoology 1, Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. These are incredible science books. Let me tell you a little about Apologia first.

Apologia Educational Ministries started in 1994 by Dr. Jay L. Wile. Dr. Wile began by writing a college preparatory Chemistry course for local homeschooler’s based on the class he taught to University students. Apologia has grown into a family-owned corporation and now publishes K-12 creation based curriculum. The homepage of Apologia’s website indicates “Apologia provides fun and challenging K-12 creation-based science curriculum…Our texts are readable, easy to understand, and full of engaging experiments that can be performed at home.” And, their junior high and high school level courses are considered college prep classes.

Now on to the curriculum we received:

Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Biology Second Edition – this is a phenomenal science book! This class is recommended for high school freshman. It “provides a detailed introduction to the methods and concepts of general biology…Students who take and understand this course will be very well-prepared for a tough university biology course.” The information contained in this book is in depth and thorough. There are 16 modules in this book. You can view the table of contents here. You can also view a sample module here. It is well formatted, too. Each section has experiments based on the lesson. Many of the needed items will be common household items, which can be purchased as a set. Some lab equipment will be needed, too. A list of the lab supplies needed can be found here. Even though there is a ton of information; it is not monotonous or drab. My daughter stayed interested while learning and I was impressed with the accuracy of the language used. Sometimes science texts are so basic that nothing new is learned, and this becomes boring and uninspiring. Apologia offers curriculum that is sure to inspire your students to learn more, even those that don’t like science. You can view the Table of Contents, a sample Module, and the Lab List here. This textbook is available for $65.00 or combined with the Solutions and Test Manual for $85.00. The full course CD is $65.00 and there is a multimedia companion CD for $15.00. Apologia offers additional items for this curriculum that are available here.

The next book we received, Exploring Creation with Zoology I, Flying Creatures of the Fifth day is, again, incredible! This curriculum is for grades kindergarten to 6th grade. There are 14 lessons that cover birds, bats, pterosaurs, and insects. There are projects and experiments for each lesson, too. All of the experiments utilize common items, so there is no need to purchase a separate lab kit. There is a Lab List here that shows the items needed for module. Even though this book is more for my son (third grade), my daughter (ninth grade) couldn’t put it down. She read it from cover to cover! With almost every paragraph she was giving me some new fact she had learned. There is so much in this little book. The language is geared for the students, so it is easy to read and follow. But even though the words are simpler, there is still plenty of scientific information. For example: “when air flows across a bird’s wing, the air that travels above the wing moves more quickly than the air that travels below the wing…” This is only a portion of the lesson, but you can see more if you click here, along the Table of Contents and Lab List. This book is priced at $35.00.

As I stated above, Apologia uses God’s Word as the foundation for teaching which helps students to become stronger in their faith. This, coupled with the knowledge they’ll gain by using these books, will help them stand strong and be able to defend their faith.

I highly recommend Apologia’s science courses. There are Elementary, Junior, and High School Sciences, as well as Marine Biology and Advanced Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. The upper levels are available as hard copies or as CD-ROM’s and, this fall, Apologia will be offering live, internet courses.